Eckleburg No. 19

Eckleburg is a literary and arts journal publishing original works from both emerging and awarded writers, poets, artists and musicians including Roxane Gay, Rick Moody, Cris Mazza, Steve Almond, Stephen Dixon, Moira Egan and David Wagoner. Eckleburg No. 19 includes work by Rick Moody, Annie Terrazzo, Olivia Ciacci, Ross McMeekin, Eurydice, Andrew McLinden, Don Hucks and more.

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ECKLEBURG NO. 19 CONTRIBUTORS

COVER

Moustache | ANNIE TERRAZZO 

FICTION
Just About | OLIVIA CIACCI 
Small Fiery Bloom | ROSS MCMEEKIN 
I Am Not Who I Am | EURYDICE 

GERTRUDE STEIN AWARD IN FICTION 
1ST PLACE | A Song Died, ANDREW MCLINDEN 
2ND PLACE | Insecticide, RACHEL HERMANS GOLDMAN 
3RD PLACE | Song of the Amputee’s Mother | SHANEE STEPAKOFF 

REGENDERED
A Diverse Flora of Native and Introduced Species, Beautifully Adapted to Their Microenvironment | DON HUCKS 
Bomb Squad | JASON OLSEN 
Her Husband Leaves Her | STEPHEN DIXON 
Korean Bathhouse | JULIA KOLCHINSKY DASBACH 
The Nonsense Singers of the Red Forest | RICK MOODY 
from Something Wrong with Him: A Hybrid Memoir | CRIS MAZZA 
The Yellow Wallpaper (1899) | CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN 

POETRY
Eating Children on a Fall Day | AMYE ARCHER
Earthboy | NOAH BURTON
Alligator Ecology | AARON APPS
The God of Knickknacks | ROCHELLE SHAPIRO
His Flaming Sister | LINDSAY VAUGHAN
Scene Likely Needed (Frankenstein Machine) | MATTHEW HARRISON
Undertow | MEG TUITE

FIN DE SIÈCLE
The Talking Cure | VIPRA GHIMIRE
On Alois Riegl and Miley Cyrus’s Intervention: A Prospective, Postmodern Critique | RANDY LEONARD
Ernst Gombrich: Art Historican in Debate and Dialogue with Scientists | RICHARD PERKINS
Oskar Kokoschka and the Search for the True Self(ie) | DANIELLE DAY
Sixty Thousand Truths | J. R. WILLIAMS
The Password to Postmodernism Is Denmark | PETER J. GOODMAN
To Arthur Schnitzler | EMILY TURNER
What Photography Did | BARRY PALMER

NONFICTION
A Supposedly Relaxing Thing That Gives Me a Really Serious Case of the Heebie-Jeebies | BRETT SLEZAK
Along the Path to Citizenship | MAYA KANWAL
Angel | WILLIAM HILLYARD
Average Ordinary Trainwreck | RUTH BERGER
For the Greater Good | VIPRA GHIMIRE
Fractals | RICHARD O’CONNELL
I Live in a Town | CHELSEY CLAMMER
Blue | HANNAH HEIMBACH
Marginalia | ANNA MARIE JOHNSON
Famous Writers Groups | JACQUELINE DOYLE
Virginia Woolf, Illinois | TATIANA RYCKMAN
We Are Woman | AMELIA NEIRENBERG
An Open Letter to a Suicidal Friend, a Bulimic Friend, A Long Lost Aunt and Stephanie, My New LinkedIn Connection | RAE BRYANT

GALLERY
Annie Terrazzo
Kim Buck
Zina Nedelcheva
Rania Moudaress

Spotlight | On Sisyphean Certainty

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAIn the essay below, Kim Buck, whose drawings are exhibited in the Eckleburg Gallery, likens her drawings to the unceasing efforts of Sisyphus.

 

I draw.

Inspired by a broader theoretical framework informed predominantly by the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche and Albert Camus, as well as my own growing understanding of the repetitive nature of my drawing process – my focused and attentive study of the human form, the daily act of placing black charcoal on white paper, and my repeated gravitation towards particular themes – On Sisyphean Certainty is an exploration of human trajectory.

I draw.

How do we human beings continue to stay upright in a world that constantly tests our stability? How do we maintain some sense of equilibrium, as a species and as individuals, within this large and formidable universe? Why do we continue to strive and struggle? Has all of this been before and will be again or is the only one ultimate certainty our mortality?

I draw.

“The eternal hour glass of existence will be turned again and again – and you with it, you dust of dust!” [Nietzsche, F. The Gay Science, translated by Walter Kaufmann, Random House, New York, 1974, p. 341.]

I draw.

Nietzsche contends that the physical structure of the universe is composed of a never-ending, identically recurring circle of time compelling us to repeat our lives over and over, exactly as we have chosen.

I draw.

The consequences of this idea could suggest metaphors to live by: to positively affirm our lives such that we would want to relive every facet in precisely the same way again and again; to derive, not a sense of pessimism from this wisdom, but find pleasure in repetition; to recognize that, by reinforcing our small but vital existence, we also accept humanity.

I draw.

Sisyphus was condemned by the gods to eternally roll a rock up a mountain only to have it roll back down again under its own weight.

I draw.

Camus saw Sisyphus as an emblem of the seemingly absurd and relentless struggle against the obscure terms of our existence. He saw Sisyphus achieve his purpose only to watch in despair as the stone tumbled down. He saw Sisyphus walk back down the hill. It is during that return, Camus suggests, that the tragic hero is briefly freed. In acknowledging the futility of his task and the certainty of his fate, Sisyphus accepts that the struggle towards the heights is itself enough.

I draw.

“All is well”, Camus concludes. “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” [Camus, A. The Myth of Sisyphus, translated by Justin O’Brien, Penguin Books, 2000, p. 111.]

I draw.

Individually, we are constantly embroiled in a struggle to maintain our own equilibrium through uncertainty, fear and the unknown. But like Sisyphus, we continue to push. To strain. To persevere, regardless of what may lie ahead. I am intensely interested in the human capacity to fight whatever forces we may encounter, whether within or beyond our mortal control. My figures are engaged. They struggle. Against what almost doesn’t matter.

I draw.

Making these hand drawn images with charcoal, perhaps the oldest known artistic medium, is an intensely laborious process. Again and again, charcoal meets paper. Time spent in the act of execution is essential to my practice. The struggle inherent in the creation of my work does, for me, not only reflect my own deep need to engage with the act of drawing, but also mirrors and substantiates the struggle of my protagonists. They will continue to battle for as long as they continue to be drawn into being.

And so I draw.

 


Kim Buck was born in Mount Gambier, South Australia. After studying Psychology and Science, Kim discovered a natural affinity for the medium of charcoal in 2006. Since graduating from the South Australian School of Art in 2009, she has had three sell out solo exhibitions and won a number of significant national prizes. Kim is represented by Peter Walker Fine Art (Adelaide), Jan Murphy Gallery (Brisbane) and Michael Reid Gallery (Sydney).

While Kim’s drawings have always found inspiration in the human form, her current work explores the intersection of figurative traditions and the natural environment, offering a unique broadening of the term landscape.